They Left Her to Bleed, So She Healed the Untouchable novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Four Million Witnesses

Keir's bare hands press her wound; Colson and Tiffany tell the world she did it for votes. She refuses evacuation, and Keir signs her in as a solo.

His palm lay flat on my thigh, and the muscle in his jaw jumped.

Sweat came out along his hairline in the freezing air.

"It hurts you," I said.

"Yes," Keir Halverson said.

"Then take your hand off."

"No."

He lifted the edge of Tiffany's scarf with two fingers and looked at the packed yarrow underneath.

"Who taught you this?" he asked.

"My grandmother."

"She taught you well. The bleeding's stopped."

His voice stayed level, but his knuckles had gone white, and he kept pressing until the medic ran in with a bag.

Only then did he pull his hand back and tug the glove on again, slowly, one finger at a time.

His face was the color of the snow outside.

"Move," he told the crew at the door. "Get her a stretcher."

I looked at the clock on the camera.

Twelve minutes was a long time to wait when somebody was bleeding.

I put that thought away and kept it.

They carried me down the hill to base camp, a heated trailer with a cot, a tray of instruments and a generator outside that never stopped.

The medic cut away my trousers and cleaned the wound with something that burned.

"Whoever packed this knew what they were doing," she said. "It would have been much worse."

"Where were you, when my brother said he'd send you?" I asked.

She glanced at the door. "Nobody sent me. Mr. Halverson pulled me out of dinner."

She stitched me closed while I stared at the roof of the trailer.

I did not cry, and she kept glancing at my face, waiting for it.

The trailer door banged open halfway through.

Colson came in first, with a camera operator walking backward in front of him. Tiffany followed with her hands pressed to her mouth.

"Sue," Colson said, in the voice he used for the viewers. "Thank God you're okay."

"Get out," the medic said.

"We just want to be here for her." He knelt by the cot and took my hand, and the camera pushed in on it. "Sue, nobody's angry. Just tell everyone you're sorry about the rope, and we'll all go home as a family."

Tiffany let out a small sob. "I forgive you. I do."

On the little monitor beside the cot, the viewer count read four million and rising.

I had begged this man in my other life.

I took my hand out of his.

"Tiffany cut the food rope," I said, clearly, to the lens. "Colson locked me in a shed with my leg open and said he'd send someone. Nobody came but the owner. I'm still here."

Tiffany's eyes went huge. "Why would you say that?"

"Because it's true."

"She's confused," Colson told the camera gently. "She's lost a lot of blood. Folks, she isn't herself."

The chat on the monitor scrolled so fast I couldn't read it.

Some of it said they were disgusting. Some of it said I was.

"Sue," he said, quietly now, with his back to the lens. "Don't do this. Dad is watching."

"Then Dad can watch."

He stood up, and the smile stayed on his face.

"Team Brantley has a rule," he said for the camera. "Injured players are out. Sue, I'm sorry. It's over for you. The helicopter will take you down at first light."

"I'm not leaving," I said.

"You don't get a vote."

"She does, actually."

The medic stepped aside.

Keir Halverson stood in the doorway, with fresh gloves on and snow melting on his coat.

Colson's smile slipped.

"Mr. Halverson. We didn't realize you were here."

"I'm not," Keir said. "Nobody has seen me. The rulebook allows a solo entry if the owner sponsors it. She's staying."

"She can't be on a team of one," Tiffany whispered.

"Rule fourteen." Keir looked at the producer behind him, who held out a tablet. "Susanna Wyland, a team of one. Starting tomorrow at dawn."

He signed with a pen from his breast pocket, and his hand shook on the last letter.

Colson stared at the tablet.

"Why would you do that for her?" he asked. His voice had dropped out of the show register entirely.

Keir looked at him for a moment too long.

Then he looked at me, and said, low enough that the camera missed it, "I'm not doing it for you."

I waited.

"Your brother lied on my air," he said.

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